Hockey player assaulted girl, 16

The message to a future captain of commerce on Friday was simple: one night of swinish behaviour at a hockey players’ “rookie party” 22 months ago could have wiped out his prospects for the future.

Chance A. Macdonald, 22, pleaded guilty in Kingston’s Ontario Court of Justice in early April to a single count of common assault committed against a 16-year-old girl in the fall of 2015.

His sentencing was put over until the end of last week, however, out of concern the conviction might show up on Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) records and cost him a plum, four-month summer internship.

Macdonald’s lawyer, Connie Baran-Gerez, argued to Justice Allan Letourneau at the time that the loss of his summer employment would result in her client being unable to pay to continue his education at Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business, where he’s in the top 10 per cent of his class.

His sentencing was postponed, but over the objections of assistant Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis, who argued that the victim was entitled to “closure” after 18 months before the court.

That resolution finally arrived in the form of a joint recommendation from the two lawyers, adopted by Justice Letourneau, who sentenced Macdonald to 88 days of intermittent jail on weekends plus double credit on the one day he’d previously spent in custody at the time of his arrest.

Additionally, he’s been placed on probation for two years, prohibited during that time from possessing weapons as defined by the Criminal Code of Canada, and is obliged to complete all assessments, counselling and rehabilitative programs he’s directed to by his probation officer.

In sentencing him, Justice Letourneau said it was his job to weigh whether the lawyers’ recommendation was acceptable in all of the circumstances and he told Macdonald he found “it’s not only appropriate, I think it was the right way to go in all respects.”

The judge had earlier observed to Macdonald that he has “excelled in employment, in athletics and in academics,” but said, “it all could have come crashing down on you,” and told the young commerce student, “this was a fork in the road for you.”

As often happens in court, Macdonald’s plea was based on what both lawyers characterized as a compromise and one that Baran-Gerez admitted “doesn’t feel quite right to both parties.”

But her client’s guilty plea, she said, was a real expression of remorse.

Macdonald had originally been accused of sexual assault and forcible confinement, charges that were withdrawn by the Crown at the conclusion of his sentencing.

And Laarhuis, in his final remarks, spent some time explaining the rationale for accepting a plea to the lesser offence. He told Justice Letourneau that the victim had been kept in the loop throughout the process and assured the judge she “fully supported the resolution,” not because she resiled from any part of her account, but because “she was torn by the thought that she might not be believed,” and the prospect of having to share her private thoughts and feelings with a room full of strangers.

She hadn’t even initially intended to report what happened that night, he told Justice Letourneau, and only did so at the urging of a close friend.

At this juncture, his office “does not have the right to heap more burden on the shoulders of young victims to advance the public interest,” he told the judge, adding that she’s “entitled to prioritize the issues in her life and move on.”

At the time of Macdonald’s plea in April, however, Laarhuis read an account of what happened that night into the court record.

He told the judge it all began when the 16-year-old victim received an invitation from a young player on the Gananoque Islanders junior hockey team to attend a rookie party at a student house in the Queen’s University student district.

She hesitated to accept, according to Laarhuis, because she’d heard such parties involved initiation rituals, one of which was “getting the rookies laid.” And when she did ultimately attend, it was with several girlfriends in tow.

As the night wore on, however, Laarhuis said, the victim and the boy who’d invited her made a connection and ended up in one of the bathrooms kissing, consensually.

But they split up, Justice Letourneau was told, after they were discovered by other members of the hockey team and subjected to rude, intrusive suggestions.

Laarhuis said they got together again in an unfinished basement bathroom and laundry area until another hockey player, around their age, came running into the room, turned off the lights, and closed the door behind him. The victim later told police the interloper was drunk and yelling that he wanted to engage in a “threesome” with them and, initially, the boy she was with was telling him to get out.

But then Chance Macdonald walked in.

Macdonald was 20 at the time, attending Queen’s and playing defence for the Gananoque junior C team. He was also six foot three, about 209 pounds and the victim told police he started talking about doing cocaine and wanting in on a threesome.

The boy she’d earlier been kissing asked her if she’d be OK with a threesome and she told Kingston Police that she told him “no.” The younger of the two intruders had his hands on her shoulders when she said it and, Laarhuis told the judge, the girl recalled being unsure whether they were all joking or serious.

Then the boy who’d invited her and subsequently kissed her led her back up to the main floor, where he left her alone while he went outside to participate in some of the team initiation rituals. Laarhuis said she told police the drunken teen and Macdonald came upstairs behind them.

Sometime between 11:30 p.m. and midnight, however, the outside group came inside and, Justice Letourneau was told, the victim and the boy who invited her sought privacy on the second floor, which they enjoyed for about five minutes before the drunken youth walked in on them again.

The victim told police he sat in the closet and yelled that he wanted to join them and have a threesome: She said she began to think again that he might be joking, because he just sat there yelling.

Then Macdonald returned, and with him other members of the team.

She told police the boy she’d partnered with was at the bedroom door telling everyone to go away when an unidentified male entered, announced it was his room and that he wanted to join in as well.

Then Macdonald sat down next to her on the bed, leaned into her, forcing her into a reclining position, she told police, and began trying to kiss her.

Laarhuis said she tried to turn her head away but then someone turned off the lights. She later told police she could hear the boy she’d chosen to be with still yelling for everyone to get out and asking if they knew her age.

She said she could hear multiple voices yelling but didn’t know what was happening.

Then she felt someone’s hand go up her shirt and fondle her breasts over her bra while another hand was shoved down her pants and groped her: she was positive the second hand was Macdonald’s, who was still trying to kiss her.

She told police Macdonald was still holding her down when the drunken teen from the closet arrived at the side of the bed with his pants halfway down and his penis exposed. He held it in his hands and repeatedly begged her to give him oral sex.

Laarhuis said the victim could feel two people touching her the whole time but couldn’t escape because of Macdonald’s body weight, until one of her girlfriends came into the room and turned on the lights.

In the light, everything stopped, Laarhuis told the judge, allowing the victim’s friend to get her out of the room and into a nearby washroom.

The boy who’d invited the victim to the party followed them in, but, Laarhuis said, the two girls asked him to leave.

When they opened the door to let him out, however, Laarhuis said Macdonald slipped in and made a pass at the victim’s female friend. Police were told he asked her if she liked making out and, without waiting for an answer, pushed her up against the counter top and started kissing her. She pushed him away, Justice Letourneau was told, and before exiting he yelled at both teens that high school girls are “f—– up”.

Laarhuis said both girls left the party after that.

Four months later, Laarhuis was telling the judge that “people need to understand how profoundly life altering sexual assaults are.”

He said “it’s a sad commentary that a number of people at that party witnessed what happened and failed to assist [the victim]” or to later assist police by providing statements. Equally “disturbing” he added, was the revelation that “hockey players have an initiation ceremony that includes getting the junior players laid.”

He asked Justice Letourneau to impose a condition on Macdonald requiring not only that he refrain from commenting on social media in any way about the victim or the case, but that he “dissuade others from commenting.”

Justice Letourneau observed that the Macdonald is already constrained by a probation condition that forbids him communicating with the girl directly or indirectly, which includes online chatter, but he said it would take some very creative wording to compel the 20-year-old to positively influence other people in that regard. “We’re not there yet,” he told Laarhuis.

Addressing Macdonald directly, the judge told him: “I played extremely high-end hockey and I know the mob mentality that can exist in that atmosphere.”

But he reminded Macdonald he’d been allowed to plead to “an assault, not a sexual assault. … Good luck finding any meaningful employment with a sexual conviction on your record.”

Given Macdonald’s future prospects, he’d told Laarhuis he would hope that Macdonald would be disinclined to jeopardize it all with a breach.

He then told Macdonald that he has “significant confidence” that “you will almost certainly never put yourself in this situation again.”